Come Together Read online

  When he catches sight of Amy’s rampaging approach, he drops his backpack on the floor and holds out his arms to welcome her. Keep cool. They’re probably just old friends, right? There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be totally at ease with the situation. He’s got a backpack and a tan, so he’s probably just been off travelling and they’re pleased to see each other. This is logical. This is OK. This is nothing I should worry about. And neither should I worry about Amy literally launching herself at him now. Or him catching her smoothly like an old dance partner – just so. These, too, are things I should continue to be totally at ease with. Same as her wrapping her legs round his slim waist – just there – and her arms round his broad shoulders. Same as him spinning her round – like that – supporting her weight by gripping her – right there – with his hands. And the same as him lowering her now and keeping his arms on her as they chat, holding her tight. I should remain totally at ease, because I’m secure and confident and happy in my relationship.

  It takes me just under three seconds to cross the room and loudly clear my throat in Amy’s ear.

  When she lets go of him, her eyes are shining, her cheeks flushed. It’s the kind of look you sometimes see in movies, the kind that tells you in no uncertain terms that this girl likes this guy. His arm stays rested territorially across her shoulders as she says, ‘Jack, this is Nathan, a really good friend. He’s been trekking in Asia for the last six months.’ She turns to Nathan. ‘And this is Jack.’

  ‘Her boyfriend,’ I add, since it’s obviously temporarily slipped her mind.

  Whatever, this new piece of information has the desired effect on Nathan. He removes his arm from Amy. I assume he’s done this because he’s about to shake hands with me. Consequently, I hold up my own in readiness. Nathan’s hand, however, has more important business to attend to, namely slowly pushing his glistening locks back from his face. With his eyesight cleared, he looks me briefly up and down, before grunting, ‘Uh,’ and turning his attention back to Amy and checking, ‘Jake, right?’

  ‘Jack,’ she repeats.

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Nathan glances at me, as if to ensure this information checks out, then looks back at Amy once more. ‘Boyfriend?’

  ‘Right.’

  Time to take control of the situation. Standing here like a lemon is starting to make me feel sour. I make out that my still-ignored hand was going somewhere by grabbing a bottle of beer from the table next to me. I twist the top and shove it towards Nathan. ‘Beer, mate?’ I ask, all fresh and friendly, slipping my hand into Amy’s and pulling her arm behind my back.

  Nathan observes this public show of affection and then looks down his perfectly straight nose at me, again mumbling to no one in particular as he accepts the beer, ‘Uh-huh.’

  Uh-huh? Who does this guy think he is, fucking Elvis? Not wanting to cramp his style, should the urge to start gyrating his hips whilst whistling Dixie overcome him, I move back a step. Naturally fearing for her safety, too, I take Amy with me. It’s only then that Nelvis deigns to address me directly.

  ‘So what do you do?’ he asks, disinterested. His accent, now he’s made the decision to speak in sentences longer than two syllables, is Home Counties via Eton. It’s pure money.

  ‘I’m an artist.’

  His eyes spark with interest. ‘Oh, really?’ He glances at Amy knowingly. ‘Successful?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, then, suddenly feeling cautious, I add, ‘reasonably so.’

  ‘What’s your surname?’ he asks. ‘Only my father’s a collector and he might have some of your work. He encourages a lot of up-and-coming people.’

  I tell him, even though I know it won’t mean a thing to him – unless, that is, his father’s called Willy Ferguson and happens to specialise in commissioning studies in yellow.

  He snorts dismissively and announces, ‘Never heard of you.’

  And that’s exactly what I want to say to him. Or, more specifically, to Amy. Just who is this guy? Just how come, if he’s such a great mate, you’ve never mentioned him before?

  Amy, as if reading my mind, squeezes my hand and intervenes. ‘Nathan and I were at college together.’

  What? I feel like asking. And that makes it OK, him treating me like a piece of shit he’s just picked off his shoe, does it? But I don’t say anything, because giving guys like Nathan a reaction is giving them exactly what they want. It’s all to do with territory. He fancies Amy. I’m with Amy. He wants me out of the way. So long as I sit tight, there’s nothing he can do.

  His upper lip curls into what can only be described as a charming sneer. The charm bit’s intended for Amy, the sneer’s all mine. ‘We’ve known each other for years,’ he tells me, pulling rank. ‘How about you? How long ago did you meet Amy?’

  Correction: Max’s party is no longer a relief. It’s turned to grief. If this guy’s trying to wind me up, then somebody should award him a scholarship. At some Poison Ivy League university. I stare at him with such concentrated hatred that I half-expect lasers to blast from my eyes and frazzle him from existence. Nathan, I decide, isn’t just a name. Nathan’s far more than that. Nathan’s a verb, as in, I’m terribly sorry, but I appear to have Nathaned all over your toilet seat. And Nathan’s a noun, as in, I knew I shouldn’t have had that extra chilli sauce last night, my Nathan’s on fire.

  I’m not going to say this to his face, though. I have manners. I don’t need to put other people down in order to feel secure within myself. I’m also significantly shorter than him. In reply to his question about when Amy and I first hooked up, I therefore mention a rough date and Amy corrects me and starts to tell him the Story of Us. Nathan listens for a while, but it doesn’t appear to be a subject he has much interest in. Then this thirtysomething, ponytailed media-type comes over and tells Nathan there’s some coke going down in the conservatory.

  ‘I’ll catch you later, Amy,’ Nathan says with a wink, excusing himself and pushing past me.

  Nelvis is leaving the building. Consider me officially all shook up.

  ‘What an arsehole,’ I mutter to Amy.

  But she’s not listening. She’s just watching him go.

  Round 2 a.m., the party’s winding down, and I say goodnight to the people I’m talking to in the living room and go looking for Amy. I come across Nathan in the study at the back of the flat. The smell of dope hangs heavy in the room. A couple of girls are crashed out on the floor, unconscious. Nathan hands a spliff to some guy with dreadlocks, whispers something, and tilts his head towards me. ‘Hi …’ he mumbles, his forehead crinkling into an exaggerated frown. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve forgotten your name.’

  ‘Jack,’ I say.

  ‘Oh, yeah – the artist guy.’ He blinks heavily, nods to himself. ‘Amy’s boyfriend.’

  ‘You seen her?’ I ask.

  He mutters something that sounds like, ‘Sure I have. Every last bit of her,’ and the guy he’s sharing the spliff with rolls on to his side and cracks up laughing.

  I take a step closer to Nathan ‘What did you say?’

  He literally wipes the smile from his face with the back of his hand. ‘Nothing, man, nothing.’

  I stare at him for a couple of seconds, then turn to go.

  ‘Hey,’ he calls out as I reach the door.

  I don’t turn round. ‘What?’

  ‘When you find her, remind her I’m taking her out for dinner Friday night.’

  This I ignore. This I ignore and don’t ask him to repeat. This I ignore and don’t ask him to repeat, because if I don’t and he does and he is saying what I think he’s saying, I’ll be duty-bound to break his fucking nose. He shouts something else after me, but I’m not listening. I just want out.

  Now.

  I find Amy in the garden and she’s pretty wasted and ready to go, so I call us a cab and we sit on the doorstep in silence, waiting for it to rock up. On the way home, she sobers up and asks me if anything’s wrong and I tell her no. Then she asks me why I’m being so quiet and I tell her I’m tired. It
’s not till we’re back at hers, with the lights out and the curtains drawn, lying on opposite sides of the bed, that I spit out what’s bugging me.

  ‘Were you going to mention it?’

  ‘Mention what?’ she asks drowsily.

  ‘That you’re going out for dinner with Nathan on Friday.’

  ‘Oh, that … yes, of course I was.’

  ‘So how come you haven’t?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How come,’ I say very slowly and very deliberately, just in case part of what I’m saying isn’t crystal clear, ‘you haven’t?’

  ‘I was going to tell you tomorrow. It’s no big deal.’

  ‘It is a big deal,’ I correct.

  ‘What is?’ She sounds confused. I have to admit, I’m genuinely impressed with this show of innocence.

  ‘That some guy walks into the party tonight and you run squealing across the room into his arms like you’re Fred and fucking Ginger.’

  ‘I already told you – he’s an old friend. What’s your—’

  ‘Such an old friend that you forgot to mention him,’ I interrupt. ‘Fine, so you’re best mates with Johnny Depp’s better-looking brother and you kind of forgot to mention that, too. Despite the fact that only this evening we sat down and went through the process – the very painful process – of telling each other all about our pasts. That’s cool, Amy. That’s just great. Were I on butt-clenching, groin-grinding greeting terms with the likes of Cameron Diaz and Kylie Minogue, and it slipped my mind, I’m sure you’d be just delirious about it.’

  I hear her struggling into a sitting position. She half sighs, half growls. ‘I didn’t tell you about him because he was out of the country. The first I knew about him being back was when I saw him tonight. I didn’t think he was coming back till Christmas.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ I say, suddenly enlightened, ‘so honesty’s now a time issue. You’ll tell me things when you deem the time’s right. Is that it?’

  ‘You’re being ridiculous, Jack. I haven’t thought about him for ages. That’s why I didn’t tell you about him.’

  ‘So let me remind myself: you’re just good friends with him?’

  ‘Yes,’ she snaps, exasperated. ‘How many times do I have to say it? He’s a good, close friend.’

  ‘So you’ve never slept with him, or anything like that?’

  She sighs as if this is the stupidest question in the world, and tries to curl up to me, saying, ‘No.’

  Great, so now she’s not just hiding things from me, she’s lying to my face. I push her away.

  ‘How come, then,’ I say, ‘when I was looking for you at the end of the party, and I asked him if he’d seen you, he cracked some shit joke about having seen all of you before? Was he being ironic perhaps? Was it some sort of an in-joke that I’ve totally misread? Maybe you guys used to go skinny-dipping as kids and it’s all innocent and cool.’

  This time, there is a pause.

  A long one.

  ‘Okay,’ she finally admits, ‘I’ve slept with him.’

  ‘How many times?’

  ‘What does it matter? It was ages ago.’ Her voice is becoming shaky.

  ‘Believe me,’ I tell her,’ it matters.’

  ‘I don’t know, half a dozen times. All right? I went to bed with him half a dozen times when we were students. Happy now? Do you want the details as well? Do you want the dates? Is that what you want?’

  ‘No,’ I say quietly. I feel no triumph over having made her admit the truth. I just feel crushed over her lying to me. I just feel sick. ‘I want to know why you didn’t tell me about him,’ I manage to say.

  ‘I told you: because I haven’t been thinking about him. Why would I?’

  ‘So why are you going out for dinner with him?’

  ‘I don’t still fancy him, if that’s what you think,’ she asserts. ‘I haven’t for years. Not since I left college.’ I feel her hand touching my arm. I don’t respond and her voice becomes more urgent. ‘I’m going out for dinner with him because he’s a friend and I like him. There’s nothing more to it than that.’

  I jerk my arm away. ‘Yeah? And why precisely not? Because he’s, like, really ugly? Because he’s, like, not seriously rich and the son of one of the wealthiest men in the country. Shit, yeah, I can understand you not fancying him. I can completely relate to that. Jesus, what have I been worrying about? Of course you don’t want to sleep with him. Only a moron would want to sleep with a guy like that.’

  ‘Why are you being like this?’

  ‘Because you’ve lied to me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry.’ Her hand’s back on my arm. It’s shaking this time and I can’t bring myself to push it away.

  ‘Why did you do it? And don’t tell me you forgot, or you didn’t think it was relevant, or any other crap.’ My voice is cold, because my whole body feels cold, because I know that this is how it starts, how every break-up I’ve ever been in starts: with the death of trust and communication. And I don’t want this. I can feel the tears rising in my own eyes. I don’t want to lose Amy. Not to Nathan. Not to anyone. I don’t want this to happen. At the same time, though, I’m not going to kid myself. I’m not going to settle for a lie. I want it all, or I don’t want it at all. ‘Just tell me the truth.’

  I hear her breathing coming heavy, mixed with the sticky sound of sobs. ‘I didn’t tell you, because what I’m saying is the truth. There’s nothing going on between us.’

  ‘So why was he winding me up? Why would he do that if he wasn’t jealous?’

  ‘You saw him. He was coked out of his face. He probably didn’t know what he was saying. He’s not normally like that.’

  We drop into silence for a few seconds, then I say, ‘I don’t want you to see him. I don’t want you to see him on Friday.’ She doesn’t reply, and so I go on. I ultimatum her. ‘If you see him on Friday,’ I tell her, ‘then I don’t know if I want to see you any more.’

  There, I think. Run with that. But her reaction isn’t what I’m expecting. It isn’t what I want. There’s no, OK, Jack. You’re right. I’m wrong. I won’t see Nathan on Friday. I won’t see Nathan ever again. Instead, she just ultimatums me right on back: ‘And – and if you want to stop me seeing my friends, then I don’t know whether I want this either.’

  ‘Are you telling me you’re prepared to break up over me telling you not to see him?’ I blurt out, astounded.

  ‘No, but are you telling me you’re prepared to break up over me telling you I am going to see him?’

  Touché.

  We lie in silence, Amy waiting for a response to her question and me trying to arrive at one. It’s no easy task. The options are twofold. I can say yes, and break up with her. Or I can say no, and stay with her. And it’s a case of Mind vs. Heart. My mind’s telling me, Chuck her. Bin her and get up and get out. She’s putting Nathan above you. She’s already made her choice, so don’t hang around and make an arse of yourself. But my heart’s got another argument. It reads: Trust her. That’s all you’ve got to do. If you don’t trust her, then what you’ve got means nothing.

  So there it is: trust or bust.

  The choice is mine.

  I choose the former; I say, ‘No.’

  ‘Well …’ she says.

  ‘Well, it looks like you’re going for dinner with Nathan, then.’

  ‘It does, doesn’t it? And you’re happy with that?’

  Happy isn’t quite the word I’d choose, but still I say, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’

  She spoons up against me and, despite my reservations, I suddenly feel warm and secure. As I listen to her breathing arranging itself into a sleep pattern, I consider that this is the first time since I was with Zoe that I’ve had to trust anyone else. And I realise that while this means surrendering my emotional independence, it also means that I’m no longer alone.

  Playing Away

  Wednesday’s spent hunting round various dodgy travel agents for bargain package holidays in Greec
e. I eventually discover a deal being offered by a company called FunSun in a one-room office near Paddington. It’s a week on the Greek island of Kos, flight leaving from Gatwick this Saturday. OK, so it’s not the mainland. The tourist attractions are more likely to be cheesy discotheques than Hellenic architectural triumphs. But what the hell? It’s still abroad, isn’t it? It’ll do.

  Mandy, the FunSun sales rep, is somewhat reticent about a few of the finer details of the holiday. Like accommodation, for example, which we’ll be told about when we get there. And transport to and from the airport, which we’ll find out about on arrival. And proximity to the beach, which, according to Mandy, can’t be that far on such a small island, can it? But no matter. Any misgivings I have are soon knocked off by the glossy photos in the brochure that Mandy waves enticingly in front of my face, but won’t let me take home. Plus it’s cheap. As in chips. Which is the main thing. So I go for it. I sign the disclaimer, prohibiting me from suing FunSun should my holiday turn out to be anything other than funny and sunny. Mandy then gives me the tickets and shows me to the door, locking it behind me and switching the sign round to CLOSED.

  Sorted.

  Early Friday evening and I’m lying on my bed, watching smoke curl up from my cigarette to the ceiling. I’m feeling a darker shade of blue. My room looks like the aftermath of a plane crash: the contents of my wardrobe and chest of drawers are littered across the floor and bed. In my role as Back of the Wardrobe Investigator, I’ve uncovered some particularly nasty fashion crimes from the last ten years of my holidaying life: ankle-length surf shorts, gonad-hugging briefs, palm-tree-patterned flip-flops and a baseball cap adorned with the legend I WENT POTTY IN LANZAROTE. But it’s not this sight that’s getting me down. It’s more what I can’t see. Amy. And where she is. And what she’s doing.

  I issued myself with a mental order last night. It was about five in the morning. I was lying next to Amy, round at hers. We’d had a great evening together, starting with some am-dram play one of her mates was in, followed by dinner with the cast, and topped off with a sextathlon back at her flat. She was sound asleep, but I hadn’t slept a wink since we’d crashed. Nathan was on my mind. Or rather, Amy and Nathan. The thought of them together. It wouldn’t go away, no matter how many times I told myself that I had nothing to worry about. Outside, it was getting light. Blackbirds were making blackbirdy noises and the first commuters were driving past. And here I was, sleepless and stressed. I was desperate. So I issued the order: I commanded myself not to think about Nathan. I told myself that whenever he popped into my mind, I was to think of something more pleasant. Anything. And it worked: I slept.